Not currently on display at the V&A

Costume Design

1949 (designed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic designs informed by period styles. His work spans ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Messel’s traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, and he increasingly concentrated on painting, interior and textile design, including designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.

Messel’s painterly and poetic interpretation of medieval period costume and architecture complemented Christopher Fry’s verse play, The Lady’s Not For Burning (1949), about a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft in a small English market town around 1400. Fry's first play to be presented at a West End theatre, it won critical acclaim; one critic hailed it as ‘a poetic fantasy of rare splendour and delight.’ (The Times, 10 November 1950).

Messel created detailed charcoal and ink drawings for Alizon and Margaret’s gold jewellery, including a cross on a chain for Alizon and Margaret’s stomacher, a piece of stiff fabric underneath the lace of a bodice.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Charcoal, ink and gouache on paper
Brief description
Costume design by Oliver Messel for Alizon's necklace in Christopher Fry's play The Lady's Not For Burning, 1949.
Physical description
A costume design by Oliver Messel for Alizon's necklace in a H.M. Tennent production of The Lady's Not For Burning, 1949. Four designs in charcoal and ink including bodice decoration, a cross on a chain and a stomacher; the latter two designs for Margaret.
Dimensions
  • Height: 38cm
  • Width: 25.1cm
Production typeDesign
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'Necklace Alizon / Alizon / for Margaret' (Pencil inscription on the front of the sheet.)
  • 'P.24/2' (Pencil inscription on the reverse of the sheet.)
Credit line
Acquired with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A
Object history
The Lady’s not for Burning, a verse play in three acts by Christopher Fry. Oliver Messel’s production was first produced by H. M. Tennent Productions Ltd. at the Globe Theatre, London on 11 May, 1949. It was directed by John Gielgud and Esmé Percy and featured John Gielgud as Thomas Mendip, Pamela Brown as Jennet Jourdemayne, Claire Bloom as Alizon Eliot and Richard Burton as Richard. It was also performed at the Royale Theatre, New York, on 8 November, 1950.
Lord Snowdon, Oliver Messel's nephew, inherited Messel's theatre designs and other designs and artefacts. The designs were briefly stored in a disused chapel in Kensington Palace before being housed at the V&A from 1981 on indefinite loan. The V&A Theatre Museum purchased the Oliver Messel collection from Lord Snowdon in 2005.

Historical significance: Association with Christopher Fry's abortive poetic drama movement.
Production
Reason For Production: Commission
Summary
Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic designs informed by period styles. His work spans ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Messel’s traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, and he increasingly concentrated on painting, interior and textile design, including designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.

Messel’s painterly and poetic interpretation of medieval period costume and architecture complemented Christopher Fry’s verse play, The Lady’s Not For Burning (1949), about a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft in a small English market town around 1400. Fry's first play to be presented at a West End theatre, it won critical acclaim; one critic hailed it as ‘a poetic fantasy of rare splendour and delight.’ (The Times, 10 November 1950).

Messel created detailed charcoal and ink drawings for Alizon and Margaret’s gold jewellery, including a cross on a chain for Alizon and Margaret’s stomacher, a piece of stiff fabric underneath the lace of a bodice.
Bibliographic reference
Pinkham, Roger (ed.) Oliver Messel, London, V&A, 1983
Other number
ROT 1638 - TM Rotation Number
Collection
Accession number
S.134-2006

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Record createdJune 15, 2006
Record URL
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